The Dissolution of Emerich Crow, A Man Accused

Emerich Crow remembered one particular Friday night in 1989 when he was in high school. All day the high school junior had anticipated the line up of sit coms on ABC that he would be enjoying that night, particularly his favorite, Perfect Strangers. When the opening theme for the show came on at 9:00, young Emerich buzzed with excitement. He sang along and with particular gusto to the lines: “Standing tall, on the wings of my dream. Rise and fall, on the wings of the dream.” Once the show started Emerich’s attention was fully on the TV. Nothing else existed for those 30 minutes. He was in a state of bliss. He loved all the characters, but especially Balki the wacky cousin from the fictional Mediterranean Island. Who wouldn’t love, Balki? He often wondered. In this episode Balki had a tooth ache and was reluctant to go to the dentist but his erstwhile cousin, Larry persuaded him that it was safe. It was a particularly funny episode. Plus he enjoyed the sweet relationship of the mis-matched pair of cousins. Inevitably the episode ended. Always a bittersweet moment. Emerich had thoroughly enjoyed the episode feeling forever connected to the characters as he always did. But now there was another week to wait before the next episode. Sadness. The rest of the ABC’s Friday night lineup provided a pleasant distraction but nothing could quite assuage the pain of Perfect Strangers being over for another seven days.

That was 29 years ago. How, Emerich Crow wondered, had he happened to have remembered that one particular night, that one particular episode? He even remembered that it was in October and that it rained that night, adding to the coziness of being ensconced in a blanket on the playroom sofa.

It was another universe, another epoch, he’d been another person. A shy virgin with few friends who earned excellent grades but was estranged from the school’s social life. Since then. My god, since then it had all been so different.

Now he was 46 years old. Recently separated. Of course. He owned his own home. Paid for. He’d had a lucrative job. Fired. His bank account was flush. Thankfully. Emerich had not just changed a lot in the intervening 29 years, but he had in the two years after that Friday night watching TV. By the end of his freshman year in college Emerich was no virgin and neither in regards to sex nor to drugs and alcohol. TV shows were all but forgotten.

Emerich shook his head at how fast he went from the lonely boy reveling in sit coms to the wild college freshman. Then he bent his head down and snorted another line of coke. Now he shook his head for a different reason. It was excellent coke and it soared through and around his brain, made his heart pump and gave him an overwhelming sense of euphoria and the conviction that he was invincible, never mind his current circumstances. Emerich chased the cocaine with a shot of scotch. Johnnie Walker Black. He smiled.

Sure he was alone in the house. Meredith had left him and taken the kids. Sure she was right, he couldn’t argue with her. Not for a second. It had happened. It wasn’t just getting fired, of course, it was the accusations. The accusations had been sufficient for the bosses to can him, without so much as a by your leave. The women were credible. Not to mention angry. Really, Emerich had no defense. He remembered a quote from Euripides: “No one is truly free, they are a slave to wealth, fortune, the law, or other people restraining them from acting according to their will.”

“You said it, pal!” Emerich bellowed. But he marveled at remembering that line.

Maybe, he thought, I should try to get laid tonight. Go to a bar, pick up some floozy. Or there was Janice from accounting who’d left the company a few months before the shit came down. She’d been good for a tumble in the past. Emerich pondered his next move, then snorted another line, then had another slug of scotch. Say, I feel pretty good. Damn good, as a matter of fact. Emerich called Janice.

“I’m really not interested, Em. Plus I’m seeing someone now. But — ” Emerich hung up. If Janice was a no, he wasn’t interested in her life story.

Screw it. Emerich could entertain himself and anyway wasn’t it an overactive sex drive that had gotten him into this pickle? Yeah that was all it was, a lot of the stuff they said was horseshit.

Balki. What a character. It had been decades since Emerich had thought of that show. Couldn’t believe he used to dig that sort of silly nonsense. Perfect Strangers had been his favorite but there’d been a lot of other shows he sat glued to. There’d been Cheers, Growing Pains, Who’s the Boss, Different Strokes. God he couldn’t believe he still remembered all those names and some of the characters. There was a Willis on some show, of course Sam Malone had been on Cheers and Tony Danza, no he was the actor’s name on some damn program. Hadn’t watched a sit com in who knows how long. God he was a dumb kid. Now what was he? Well he’d been something until the shit hit the fan. Moved right up in the corporate world. Played it smart, played it tough, knew when to schmooze when to kick ass. Made a lot of sound investments on the side. Made a good life for Meredith and the kids. The wife had done okay herself as a lawyer. But she did too much of that pro bono shit because of her bleeding liberal heart. House was paid for. In full. Didn’t owe a dime. Paid for everything. God damn it.

Balki was kind of funny at that, at least for a kid.

Another line, another slug of good old Johnnie Walker Black. Maybe hit the links tomorrow. Nahh it would be Saturday, wait until during weekday when it wasn’t so crowded. Have to find someone to golf with. Bunch of so-called friends had suddenly gotten busy when Emerich got into his little mess. Fuck ‘em.

Emerich got up to put some music on. Stood. Wobbly. Teetered a bit and fell on his ass. Helluva time getting back up but he managed. Staggered to the head and took a nice long piss. Balki. He chuckled. Damned if he wasn’t peeing all over the toilet and the floor. Well hell can clean it up in the morning. Zipped up. Checked himself in the mirror. Looked okay. Not bad. Holding up. Could use a shave. Stumbled towards the sofa, grabbing his bottle of scotch on the way. No more blow for now.

Maybe turn a goddamned light on. Or the TV. Rent some porn, better on the TV than on the computer, bigger picture. Could never rent it at home when Meredith was around. She’d a had a fit. Prude.

He remembered something from the bible, from Ecclesiastes: “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.” How and why do I remember shit like that? As useless as Balki. No, no, no, no, no, Balki was cool, he was funny, the show was funny at least at the time.

Women. There was his problem. Damn it, it was the ones who dressed sexy and flirted who were the first to complain if you actually did anything. Why didn’t they just wear burlap sacks over the bodies with eye holes? Couldn’t compliment ‘em, even that was harassment. That whole me too business was changing the world and not in a way that Emerich Crow liked. Every woman was believed no matter what she said and who she said it about. Emerich slammed the coffee table in anger. Now what was he going to do? He was tainted by the accusations and his dismissal. Everyone knew. He may even have to face legal charges. Fuck that.

Balki. What a crack up. That goofy accent. Emerich still remembered it. What the hell was the actor’s name who played him. Began with a B. Bertrand? Bradley? Maybe it was a P. Peter? Porter? Too lazy to look it up. Another swig of scotch. Immanuel Kant said: “Act that your principle of action might safely be made a law for the whole world.” Why, Emerich wondered, am I remembering all these quotes? I think I’ve got them exact too. But I can’t remember the fucking name of the guy who played Balki. But I can remember watching that one episode about the dentist on a rainy October night. But I can’t remember what those women claimed I did and why it was supposedly so damn bad. Yeah he'd been a little rough, a little crude, but they seemed into it. And that one broad, Larisa, that was like five years ago and she just brings it when the other gals opened their big mouths. What a dirty frame-up.

Lately Emerich hadn’t known what to feel. Pissed about the job and Meredith leaving with the kids, but glad he was free of all encumbrances and could still make a good life for himself. But then…

Emerich started to weep. First time he’d cried, really cried, since he was a kid. The tears poured out. He heaved with wracking fits of sobs. It went on for ten, fifteen, twenty minutes. When it was over Emerich felt stone cold sober and a crystalline pure depression like he’d never forget rose up his spine. He knew another drink or another line wouldn’t help. It had finally hit him. He’d fucked it all up. Why pretend anymore? I shouldn’t have been messing around with those women in the first place let alone doing….what I did. Fuck me!

Emerich stared at the floor his mind a blank except for the pulsating depression that inhabited his every breath. Shit, guilty, guilty, guilty. Might as well face it. I did what they said, I am what they said. That’s me. All at once here it is and there's nothing to be done. Nothing to take the pain away.

Balki.

Finally Emerich rose and fetched his laptop. A quick search revealed that Amazon had every season of Perfect Strangers available to stream. He’d start from the beginning and watch every episode. Emerich cheered up. He nestled in on the sofa with a blanket. It started to rain outside. Perfect.

My Sobriety, A Day at a Time

A couple of weeks ago I reached another sobriety milestone. Being clean and sober is not something I'd say that I take tremendous pride in. I'm leery of pride. I am very happy about my sobriety and glad that I got clean when I did --weeks before the missus found out she was pregnant and just as I was embarking on my teaching career. I feel uncomfortable at AA meetings when people applaud my "birthday." It's a nice way to recognize people but I don't want to do an end zone dance about it. One of the most difficult concepts I've wrestled with in my life is humility. Looking back on your drinking and using years is a good recipe for humility, but it's best not to pump your fists in the air about keeping off the booze. After all it's a one-day-at-a-time thing. You've got to stay sober that day, it's a constant work in progress. Humility is more important than pride.

A lot of people talk about the miracle of their sobriety. I don't think staying sober a day at a time is a miracle. It's just what you do and the way to do is pretty simple: go to meetings, pay attention, talk to people, don't pick up that first drink, pray if you're into it (not me), meditate if your into it (me), do service and, as soon as you can, find a life that is more than just staying sober. Sobriety is not an end, it's a road to live a better life for people who have damaged some of their time on earth by getting very high very often. There's no miracle in it.

I have experienced a miracle however. Thirty one years ago after a two day drunken debauch I woke up and my first thought was that I had a problem. The wife, unsurprisingly, had been upset with my drunken state and slept on the sofa. I got out of bed and sat on the end of the sofa. She sat up. I said, "I've got a problem." Just like that. Mind you, I had never for one second prior to that morning entertained the notion that my drinking or drug use was excessive. When you're a social drunkard you can always point to other people and say, "now that guy drinks too much." Finding someone who uses more than you or who you think does, is easy. But me? I was fine. Over the years I've been questioned about this story. Surely, a person will say, the idea must have been planted by someone, or you had to have considered the possibility. Interestingly, none of the people who question my story are themselves in recovery. Folks who get clean and sober understand that sometimes, as we say, the bolt of lightening strikes.

That bolt was fortuitous for me because as previously mentioned I was eight months away from being a father. Managing that while imbibing and snorting would have been a disaster, not that my wife would have allowed it. As a result of my getting clean I was able to be a father to not just one but two daughters who today are successful grown women.

No, I don't miss drinking. Not anymore. There were times that I thought the only way to manage the world was though heavy doses of alcohol. Having given that up I faced something more daunting than simply not drinking, managing the world completely sober. It was a whole new way of life. I had relied on getting high to manage the pain I still suffered as an abuse survivor and controlling my panic attacks and blunting my depression. Absent booze, navigating the world was difficult. Fortunately I was busy, first with a pregnant wife, then with a baby and the whole time with my new career. It was sink or swim and through AA I swam. Awkwardly at first but I managed.

Drinking had been the be all and end all of my life. Drinking was parties, music, sex, sports, holidays, Summer, Winter, Autumn, Spring a means of celebrating a means of drowning sorrow a means of escape, a way of life. One function of drinking is how it allows one to face life's grim realties. You can ponder mortality or discuss it with others when anesthetized by liquor. An existential crisis while high is easily blunted by getting higher. Of course, getting higher and higher is rather the point for an addict. Too much is never enough. There is no end, there is always more. I spent years drinking towards the perfect evening. Somehow this night would reach the stratosphere. There was some nebulous perfect high that could be attained, perhaps containing incredible sex, great insights, tremendous belly laughs, unparalleled excitement. One just had to keep at it, this dance with god was there somewhere.

Yes, I committed any number of truly stupid actions while high. I led women on, I hurt feelings, I broke things, I stole, I vandalized, I lied, I cheated, I made a bloody damn fool of myself. And I suffered some truly hellacious hangovers. All of this was collateral damage in the fight to be high, higher and highest. It was a stupid way to live, but the only way I knew. Truly it kept me sane, in the face of the horrors of my childhood and my crippling panic attacks, liquor allowed me some comfort and was a social lubricant without which I would never have made the scores of friends I did in my youth. But the cure for my ails took over and needed to be stopped. I'm a lucky man.

Being sober has not been a panacea. It has, however, been a truer path to enlightenment, understanding and coming to terms with who I am and what I've gone through. Sobriety does not make one perfect but it allows the pursuit of progress (perfection being unattainable). I am a work in progress. I am bi polar and suffer from depression but I live through it on life's terms, accepting the things I cannot change and trying desperately to change the things I can. I hope for serenity and honesty and courage, but do not ascribe those characteristics to myself. I'm just doing what I can today.

I'm really glad for today.

Chicks Dig Me: The Life of Man Adored by Women

After a dental appointment I went to the bus stop. The wait was 12 minutes. If I waited there was a pretty young Latina college student who might have developed feelings for me. Ones I could not have in good conscience reciprocated. So I walked home. Poor kid missed out. She was wearing those tight yoga pants that a lot of young women use to try to lure me. I’m wise to their game. I’m a very happily married man and simply don’t allow comely lasses to tempt me into adultery. I’d just break their hearts anyway. I don’t know why young women throw themselves at me, but I learned long ago to accept it as a fact of life. I’m considerably older than most but I suppose that my obvious experience in the ways of love is attractive to women who tire of unsubtle, unsophisticated men their age pawing at them. I’ve also maintained my boyish good looks and smoldering sexuality. I’m a runner so am quite fit and this shows. I also have to surmise that women instinctually realize that I am a man of superior intelligence and great wit. My charm speaks for itself. My wife is well aware of the effect I have on women and has accepted it. She is proud of me and knows I’ll never stray (perhaps excepting a visit from Rihanna or Kristen Stewart).

It’s fair to ask if I’ve always been irresistible to the fairer sex and the answer is: indubitably. When I was quite young it was, the opposite of today as it was older females who were drawn to me. I remember as a toddler being pursued by seven and eight year old girls. This was not ideal for someone just out of diapers as my pursuers frightened me. By the time I was in kindergarten I was a man of the world and the constant attention I received from older girls was something I found flattering, plus I knew enough to act on their overtures. By the third grade I was getting attention from junior high girls and had a full social calendar. Being the catch that I was, girls knew that they’d have to buy me dinner and bring me gifts if I were to consider them worthy of my increasingly precious time.

By the time I hit junior high school I was dating 17 and 18 year olds and even some university students who found the risk of impugning the morals of a child worth it for the chance to savor my presence. I struggled through high school, so preoccupied was I by fighting off the hordes of females of all ages who were competing for my affections. When I started excelling in soccer the numbers of my pursuers increase many fold and at our matches the sidelines were jammed with women lusting after me.

I escaped to another city for college, hoping for a respite from love crazed females who saw me as the embodiment of masculine perfection. However a new town simply meant a new group of women seeking my companionship. At least in college I finally settled on dating women my own age. I tried a year abroad to relieve myself of the women swooning at my feet. But Europe proved much the same. British women, French, Spanish, German, Polish, Finnish, Danish, Italian, no matter what country, no matter where I turned no matter what I did there were women begging me for a date, a lock of my hair, a one-night stand, all while pledging eternal devotion.

It was not until I married that I achieved relief. My eventual wife was one of my most ardent pursuers who literally punched, kicked and slapped her competition to get to me. I admired her determination and found that of all the thousands of women I’d been with, she was the most intelligent, compatible and beautiful. For once I was in love too.

Of course it hasn’t all been perfect since we married. Despite the prominence of my wedding ring and my advancing age there have been those many, many, many determined lasses who hope against hope that they can be the one to at last coax me into infidelity. It hasn’t worked yet.

If you’re wondering, no it has not been an easy life. You would think the constant attention of beautiful women would be heaven on earth, but a man needs rest, he needs time alone and once he is married he needs his sacred wedding vows respected. On the other hand having women forever falling head-over-heals for me has done wonders for my ego. Also, I had what one might call the pick of the litter and was able to find the perfect mate. She is a woman not only of eternal beauty but of strong character who realizes that tens of thousands of women are jealous of her. One can only speculate at how privileged she feels to be the one and only who lays claim to my heart.

I’ll have to close here, I’m being told its time for my medication. The doctors and nurses here are so nice. The females of whom all clearly have crushes on me.

A Piece of My Heart on the Floor

Jenna and I in happier times

There was a piece of my heart lying there on the kitchen floor. Jenna had just cut it out executing this action with a nasty twist. I supposed it could be replaced some day but for the moment it felt like the damage was irreversible and permanent. I couldn’t cry, I couldn’t scream, I couldn’t move. I could only just barely breath.

Jenna was still there as if admiring the precision of her butchery. Her face was in a sympathetic frown, yet her arms were crossed creating a feeling of great distance between us. She was feigning concern for my well-being and one would assume probably felt a bit of guilt over the damage she had inflicted. I looked up at her and she’d never seemed so beautiful nor so ugly. I opened my mouth to speak but I could no more make an utterance than do a standing back flip.

“Is there something you want to say, Dirk? You can say whatever you need to. I’m listening.”

I could say whatever I needed to. How kind, how gracious, how thoughtful of her to grant me permission, to recognize my free will.

“Maybe, you want to talk later? I understand this is difficult.”

Difficult? She really acknowledged that this was “difficult?” Well it was for me, for her it seemed a rather simple matter. I wondered why she didn’t just stomp on that chunk of my heart that she had eviscerated. Why was she now being so superficially thoughtful?

My knees were weak, my body felt drained of blood, my fingers trembled. I was more zombie than man. The living dead, stuck in the same room as the murderer.

“Look, Dirk, would you prefer it if I left? We can talk later if you like. I’ll have to come back tomorrow to get the rest of my things. Promise me you’ll be okay.”

Jenna wanted a promise from me? She, who had broken so many. And why would she care if I was “okay”? She was the one who had inflicted the damage.

I was growing weak at the knees so I sat down. I looked up at Jenna who was still looking beautiful/ugly, still frowning with fake sympathy and still keeping her arms folded.

“Please say something, Dirk.”

Oh, so she wanted me to say something. That was what SHE needed. I’d be doing her a big favor by talking. The guilt must have really wrapped itself around her. Its tentacles strangling what little conscience she had. I had half a mind to keep my big trap shut, that would really be doing a number on her. But at the same I wanted her gone and it seemed the only way to rid myself of her was by saying “something.” And so I did.

“Bye, Jenna.”

“Okay. That’s it? You don’t need to say anything else right now?”

I looked up Jenna and shook my head no.

“Fine,” she said flippantly, as if I was being a total asshole. “I’ll be going then.”

I sighed and looked down at the floor.

“I’ll probably come by fairly early tomorrow morning to get my things, if that’s okay.”

“Sure,” I muttered.

With a flash, obviously feeling released as a result of my finally speaking, Jenna was out the door.

It seemed an obvious time for me to break into huge sobbing fit. I cry fairly easily, especially for a man. But with a piece of my heart out I was totally beret of feeling other than a numbness, as if death was approaching and I was settling into it. So I sat there on a chair in the kitchen staring at the floor. It needed mopping, I noted. I also noted that I had never felt such hate for a person as I did now for Jenna. Nor, for that matter had I ever loved her as I did now. But surely the love would fade. So would the hate. In its place there would be a huge hole, right where she had ripped out that chunk of my heart.

For a minute or two I kidded myself that Jenna would be back, that it was all a mistake she’d made and any minute there she would be saying she was back for good and all. But in what was left of my heart I knew better.

I sat in the kitchen for what I guess was about an hour before I finally got up and I only did so because mother nature had called. I relieved myself, splashed my face and got ready for bed. A bed I would be entering and waking up in alone. Alone for the first time in four years. That’s how long Jenna and I had been together. We had been so happy — or so I thought. Quarrels were few and far between and never serious. Much more frequent was love making, drives in the country, visits with friends, dinner at gourmet restaurants, long quiet evenings together talking or just reading or listening to the radio. I never thought for a second it would end. Yet it did all of a sudden, in one night.

A long affair with a professor, the professor got a divorce, the professor proposed, she said yes, all this under my nose, my stupid nose. How matter-of-factly Jenna told me all of this as if recounting a day at work. Yes, she apologized, acknowledged that it was a shock, claimed she hadn’t been happy with me the past year and was surprised I hadn’t seen the signs. Well I hadn’t. Hadn’t seen a thing. No signs. Not to me. She’d seemed happy enough and yes she’d been out of the house more but she was working on her Phd, I  thought she was doing research, not having an affair with a married man.

Live and learn.

The next day was bad. The day after a little better. And so on. Better by degrees each day but the hole in my heart remained and though the pain lessened it was still a consistent presence

Two weeks after Jenna left me the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. The day after that I enlisted in the army. Here I was teaching three classes in English Literature, on the tenure track, probably not too many years from being a full professor and I was going off to war. I’d never have done it if Jenna hadn’t sliced open my heart. But I was damaged goods and there was little that could happen to me in war that would feel as bad as what that woman had done to me. The war would be my escape. My house was full of memories and so was virtually every restaurant in town and every friend I saw. Jenna permeated everything. The army, especially with a war going on, was the only antidote I could envision. An escape. To others I was being patriotic, noble, serving my country. But I realized that I was running away

Basic training is over as I write this and I’m headed to the Pacific. I’m a grunt, an infantryman and I’m ready for action. Maybe I’ll win a medal, maybe I’ll get killed by a sniper, maybe a leg will be blown off and maybe I’ll be taken prisoner and maybe I won’t see much action at all. Right now I don’t care. I’m going to accept my fate. If I come out of the war alive and in one piece I’ll…well, I don’t know really. That’s a ways off. Right now I’m a solider and I don’t know what’s next but whatever it is, I’m ready.

Ben in the Afterlife; The Pesky Visits of a Dearly Departed

PART ONE

(This part was written last week, October 17, 2017.)

That gall durn Ben Slipowitz keeps pestering me. Sure he was the best damn friend a fella ever had but he’s been dead for 10 damn months. Why the hell can’t he leave me alone? Most every night, usually about nine o’clock he starts banging on the ceiling. I look up and there’s this dark mist with an outline of ole Ben’s face in it, soze I know it’s him. He winks at me too. Then he swoops and swirls around the cabin sometimes making this, I guess you’d say, cackling sound. After a few minutes everything gets quiet and then I see him plain as day sitting in a chair by the fireplace with his old hunting jacket on, the one with the blood stain when he cut himself skinning a rabbit. He’ll look over at me, smile from one darned ear to the other then he’s gone. Who needs that kind of aggravation?

Ben and I hunted and fished together for a good fifty years, since we was kids. Well we fished that long, we gave up hunting a few years back. Ben, why he got tired of all the work that went into hunting compared with fishing and me I just lost my taste for killing mammals. Sometimes another friend or my oldest boy or one of my cousins visiting from the city would join us, but most of the time it was just the two of us. Ben died of a whopper of a heart attack just under a year ago. Was tying his shoes right here in the cabin when all of a sudden like he stood up, put one hand to his chest and looked straight up with his mouth wide open in a silent scream. Then he dropped like a dang rock and hit the floor with a thud. Yeah I saw it all right and knew without a doubt he was goner when he fell. I checked for a pulse just the same and there was nothing doing. Dead just like that, 67 years old, same age as me. I aim to go on living a lot more years though don’t know that I'll make it if Ben don’t stop visiting me from the spirit world or wherever the hell he’s supposed to be. Damn him.

Ben had never married and was an orphan so I was his only family to speak of. I got divorced from my darling Rebecca four years ago. Once our kids growed up and left home all she and I did was argue. She’d always wanted to do one thing and I’d always want to do the other. Worse, she brought up every bad habit I ever had and raked me over the damn coals about everything. Nothin’ I did was ever right anymore and I supposedly wasn’t good enough for her. I half think Rebecca just went off her nut ,the way she talked. Anyway I was the one who suggested the divorce. I could tell the old battle axe was surprised, but her pride made her agree to it and before the papers were even filed she went off and moved in with her spinster sister over in Cabook County where I guess she spends her time talking about what I no good bum I was — or am. Hell, I don’t care. Like I said the kids are grown, Tom is big wheel in the real estate biz, Lorna is nurse and the littlest one, Jim is a fashion designer. Yup he’s a queer. The signs were all there when he was a kid, never did take to outdoor actives which is pretty much all I do. Real mama’s boy that one. Oh hell, I don’t care, he’s still my boy and I still love him and always will. I just don’t like to think about what he and what he calls his partner do when the lights are out.

I sold the house when Rebecca left and moved permanent into our cabin, it’s right down by where Lake Tahoma and Big Frog River meet. I still fish pretty regular — hell, who am I kidding, I damn near fish everyday — and many a meal I eat is fresh perch or trout or salmon or whitefish or whatever the hell I happen to catch. My life’s pretty good. I got all the nature a fella could desire which is good for long walks and now I got a satellite dish for the TV so that can keep me company along with all the books I never got around to reading when I was working full time at the mill which I did for 40 years. Mostly its detective stuff and biographies of great men although I don’t know how damn great some of the people I read about are. Most any person who lived long enough to be worth writing about has done his share of bad things. Hell I’m the first to admit that I ain’t exactly been an angel myself. Don’t believe me, ask Rebecca, she’ll give you an earful.

Yeah sure I’m lonesome a lot of the time. I spent so damn many years with the guys at the mill and with a house full of kids and Rebecca that I’m used to other folks. I go into town now and again like for shopping and sometimes stop at McGinity’s for a beer or six but most days it’s just me and of course that gall darn ghost. I reckon it’s about time I got back to writing about Ben in the afterlife, cause that’s far and away more interesting than me babbling on about my Rebecca — who ain’t mine no more — or the kids or my solitary life.

More than once, hell more than a dozen times, I’ve asked Ben just what the hell he wants out of me. I’ve asked that question in as many different ways as I can come up with but it don’t matter no how cause that son of a bitch don’t answer. I told ya what he does do and none of it entails him talking to me let alone explaining hisself.

The first time he “visited” less than a week after he died, it scared the bejeezus out of me. I thought for a second that I’d gone stark raving loco. I didn’t sleep a wink that whole night. The next night he came I was a little less scared but I still damn near soiled myself and still hardly got any shut eye. As he started coming regular I got a bit more used to it until by and by I came to get irritated by the whole show. Pretty much the same dang thing every night. Sometimes there’d be more thumping and other times he sit longer and other times the top of his head would float away while he was sittin’ there. That was downright spooky the first time, but like everything else I got used to it. What I can’t get used to is the whole idea of it. What’s he after? Is this what I have to look forward — more like dread — for the rest of my days?

Last week I drove into town and went to the library where I checked out everything I could find about the afterlife and what they call seances and mediums and anything else that was halfway serious about visitors from the graveyard. I’m still pouring through some of this stuff but so far haven’t learned nothin’ that I can apply to my situation. It does seem that Ben may be stuck going from this world to the next but that’s just a theory. I’ve thought about having someone over to the cabin hoping that Ben will do one of his “performances” and that I can at least talk about it to another human being. Thing is I don’t know whether to warn them or not. If I don’t it might scare a person half to death and if I do they might think I’m loony, especially if Ben takes that night off.

Ben lived most of his life in a small house just down the road a piece from our place. Course he lived alone. He worked at the lumberyard which was right by the mill so we saw each other every day. On weekends and vacations we’d head down to the cabin, which is only a half hour ride from town and like I say sometimes we’d have company. Ben always seemed like a happy guy, always ready with a joke or a story and a pretty good listener too. No one had a bad word to say about Ben, least of all me. Up until he started haunting me I regarded him as as fine a man as has walked the earth. Oh there was nothing special about him, no great talent, he wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, but a nicer person you’d never meet. That was while he was alive, though. Right now I’m dealing with his spirit and he’s become goddamned aggravating.

PART TWO

(This part was written today, October 25, 2017, a week after I wrote the first part.)

I’m finally shed of Ben, least I think so, it’s been five days since he showed up last and he’d never before missed more than one day. What happened was this. The night after I wrote the first part of this story (and it’s a true one, I swear to God) I was sittin’ in my rocking chair by the fire reading one of those books on the afterlife with stories of ghosts and what not. To tell ya the truth I was having a deuce of a time making heads nor tails of most of what I was reading. Some of it just seemed damned silly and other books were full of scientific mumbo jumbo that I could’t understand to save my life. Anyway I’m getting kind of intrigued by this one story in a book by this fella who investigated ghost sightings when damn Ben shows up banging away at the ceiling. It was one interruption too many.

“Goddamn it, Ben!” I hollered, “you need to stop with this right now. You got no call to interrupt me every dang evening. I’ve been patient but this has gone too darn far. You hear me?”

Next thing there’s Ben again sitting in the chair on the opposite side of the fireplace from where I’m sittin’. Only this time he ain’t grinning. Instead he’s got a sadder looking face than you ever did see. In fact, it looks like he’s got some sort of afterlife tears streaming down his face.

“Now don’t get all weepy on me, Ben. That’s no better than the way you usually are. I’m sorry you’re dead but I can’t do nothin’ about it and I’ve got a right to live my life.”

Then Ben’s ghost looks right at me, more like he’s staring, and he mouths something, a word that seems like “shout.”

"You sayin’ not to shout at you? Is that it?”

Ben shakes his head no and mouths the word again. This time I take it for “out.”

“You saying ‘out’? Is that it?”

Ben nodded his head yes.

Suddenly it came to mind that Ben died right here in this cabin and maybe for some reason his spirit was stuck here and he wanted to get out. I walked over the front door, looked back at Ben and then swung the door open. I nodded my head towards the outdoors. The next thing I know this mist in the shape of Ben is flying past me and out the door. I look outside and the mist is hovering in the air about 40 feet over the ground. It seems to be smiling.

“You takin’ off now, Ben?”

The mist seems to nod its head yes and then breaks into the biggest gall durn smile you ever did see. Next he flies back and forth this way and that, up high, down low, doin’ summersaults and back flips like a kid diving into the lake on the first day of Summer vacation. Finally he paused for a few seconds and it was pretty clear he was looking down at me. I got the feeling this was goodbye. I gave him a good hard look and waved and said, “goodbye Ben, I loved you, you were a great friend.”

He hovered another few seconds and then disappeared into thin air.

I went back into the cabin and balled my eyes out. I hadn’t cried like that since I was little kid. I’ll tell you, it felt good. When I was done sobbing and had blown my nose and splashed my face I poured myself a tall glass of whiskey and sat staring at the fireplace, I had a good fire going. At one point I thought I saw Ben’s face in the fire but I’d been dozing on and off and it had been a pretty tall glass of whiskey so I don’t put much account to it.

It was late when I went to bed and I slept better than I have in years. When I woke up the next morning I had a huge appetite so I made eggs, ham, flapjacks and toast and ate every bit of it. Then I had a powerful hankering to do some fishing, which I did. I sat by the river with my pole in the water and goddamn I never caught so many fish in my life. The whole time I could feel Ben’s presence beside me and I tell ya that it was a great comfort. I miss the son of a bitch.

An Espresso, Sugar, a Conversation, A Proposition

“Why do you always bring me sugar with my espresso? Everyday I come here for breakfast and everyday when I finish eating I order an espresso and everyday you bring me the espresso and sugar, yet I never, ever put sugar in my espresso and you know this because you usually sit with me while I drink it.”

“Is this something for you to get upset about? Is it really such a big deal. So don’t use the sugar, my putting the sugar on the table doesn’t hurt you one bit.”

“Okay, so it’s not a big deal but I just don’t understand why you always put the sugar on the table. Why?”

“It’s just a habit. Whenever I serve coffee to anyone I automatically bring the sugar. I’m supposed to.”

“Even to me who doesn’t use the sugar.”

“I still don’t get why this is such a big deal. What do you care?”

“It just bothers me is all.”

“Why should such a little thing bother you? Haven’t you got other cares in the world? Why be bothered about something that doesn’t put you out in the slightest?”

“It’s a waste of your time. Maybe I just don’t like seeing you waste your time.”

“Okay, if it’ll make you feel any better I won't bring the sugar to your table next time you order an espresso.”

“Now I’m sorry I made such a big deal out of it.”

“After all that now you decide you’re sorry about making such a big deal out of it. Geez, you’re hard to figure.”

“I guess I’m getting crotchety in my old age.”

“Old age? You’re not that old.”

“I’m a good two dozen years older than you.”

“The heck you are. I’m 32.”

“Well I’m 60, so there you have it?”

“In a pig’s eye you’re 60. I’d have trouble believing you’re 50.”

“You want me to whip out my driver’s license?”

“As long as that’s the only thing you whip out.”

“When have I ever done the slightest thing that suggested that I’m a dirty old man?”

“I’m just teasin’ ya, but I do see the way you look at my ass when I walk away.”

“Wait a second, how can you tell if someone is looking at your ass if you’re walking away?”

“See that mirror over there?”

“Geez I’m busted. Well in my defense you’ve got a nice one.”

“I suppose that’s a compliment.”

“Of course it is. There’s nothing wrong with suggesting you’ve got a cute ass, it’s not as if I don’t enjoy talking to you and don’t enjoy your intellect.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re a very bright person and I always like talking to you. Why do you think I tip you so well?”

“I always thought the tips were on account of my ass. And don’t think I don’t notice you sneaking a peak at my tits when I bend over to serve you.”

“Well how the hell can I not see them? They’re practically in my face.”

“Not that you mind.”

“Not that I mind, indeed.”

“Haven’t you dated since your wife died?”

“Couple of times, but I didn’t enjoy it. There was no spark and it was too much work getting to know someone from scratch. I could do it when I was young, but I haven’t the energy.”

“I know what you mean. It’s been hard for me to get back in the dating scene since my divorce. I guess I just don’t trust men anymore.”

“You can trust me.”

“Like you said, you’re a couple of centuries older than I am.”

“I said a couple of dozen years!”

“Still, that’s a pretty big gap.”

“You might like an older man.”

“Are you flirting with me?”

“Hell, just about all I do is flirt with you. Hadn’t you noticed?”

“There’s different kind of flirting. What you’ve done before was just for fun, this time it seems you're trying to get something out of it.”

“You can’t blame a fella for trying.”

“Well, I’m flattered.”

“Maybe I can put a character based on you in my next novel.”

“Not sure how I feel about that. But wait, are you saying you’d do that so I’d sleep with you?”

“Now don’t get all worked up, I’m just having fun. Besides, I wasn’t thinking of sleeping.”



“I’ll bet you weren’t.”

“How about a one-night stand?”


“I believe you’re serious.”

“If you say 'yes' then I’m dead serious, if you say 'no' then I was just fooling around.”

“Hmm, I do have to say you’re in pretty good shape.”

“For a man of my age?”

“I’d say for a man of a certain age, you look ten years younger.”

“Nice.”

“But that’s still a lot older than me.”

“Age is just a number.”

“You’ve got a point there.”

“So really I never thought of this before, but why don’t we, well, start off with dinner some night, how about that?”

“And I suppose that I’m the dessert?”

“Depends on how you look at it, maybe I’m the dessert.”

“I’ve always thought you were a wit.”

“That’s just one of my strong suits.”



“I suppose another is your prowess in the bedroom.”

“Well, I don’t like to brag.”

“No, I’m sure you don’t.”

“So whattaya say? Dinner and a nightcap at my place? I have a really nice apartment.”

“I should hope you do, you being a big time author.”

“I don’t know that I’m big time. Whatever I am as a writer it’s only enough to make me middle class.”

“Just that, huh?”



“Maybe upper middle class.”

“Maybe.”

“So are you thinking about it?”

“Look, you don’t have to buy me dinner. How about I just come up to your place some night and chat and we see where the evening takes us.”

“I’m loving this conversation. I’m sure glad it’s slow here today.”

“Yeah I bet you are. But I need the tips.”

“Okay so you want to come over tonight?”

“Sure, my calendar is open. But no promises.”

“Hey I’ll be happy just to spend time with you somewhere besides in this restaurant. Anything else that happens is a bonus.”

“Bonus, huh? Well we’ll just have to see if you earn that bonus Mr. Novelist.”

“You are a sexy woman.”

“By the way, your espresso is getting cold.”

“Needs more sugar.”

“Funny.”

I Get News of a Fortune Coming My Way and Respond to the Glad Tidings

Today I received the following email. For some strange reason it wound up in my spam folder. I have included my response below.

Edward Williams Thu, Aug 23, 2018 at 2:32 AM
Reply-To: Edward Williams
Dear Beneficiary,

It's my pleasure to inform you that after our Board of Directors meetings with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs we have concluded to release your Overdue Inheritance Funds Worth US$4.5 Million via our service western union Remittance.

Moreover based on our agreement with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs you will be receiving US$5,000 on a daily basis until your total payments Worth US$4.5 Million is completely transferred.
YOUR FUNDS TRANSACTION DETAILS
MTCN#______859-638-0981 

Sender’s First Name:__Nuel

Sender’s Last Name:___Richard

Amount sent:___$5000

Meanwhile you are required to provide the below details accordingly:
1) Your Full Name: 
2) Your Full Address:    
3) Phone Number:

Furthermore you are required to send US$150 which will enable our authority the Ministry of Finance signs the Funds Release Order We are waiting for your urgent respond to enable us commence with this project.

Yours in Service
Agent Edward Williams
General Manager western union

Dear Ed, What a pleasure to receive your email and discover that I am soon to be a wealthy man. I can't tell you how happy this makes me (mainly because it doesn't). But before I receive this largesse I have a few questions. Why did you misspell both "official" and "western" in your email address? Or have there been changes in the spellings of these words that I am unaware of? Or did you really mean officail? Maybe this is a new word? And perhaps werstern is a new word too.

It must have been a thrill for you to meet with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. However you neglected to mention which country this high mucky muck represents. Narnia? Freedonia? Prussia? Also, I'm curious as to how you decided that I am the rightful heir to this fortune. I have no wealthy relatives that I am aware of. Did a former student of mine go on to a successful life of crime and was said student inspired on this path by my class and did this student want to reward his or her inspiration? Perhaps it was a death bed wish after being plugged full of lead by a rival. The mind reels at the possibilities.

You say that I am required to send my full name. Don't you know it? Surely this is a mistake. You have to know who I am if it has been decided that I am the one due these millions of bucks. I'll assume that it's an oversight and not an indication that this is a sham.

So I'm required to send $150 to get the ball rolling. How bout this instead: you deduct it from my first $5,000 payment. Hell, given how much I've got coming my way why not double it, take $300, consider it a little something for you and your family.

Once again, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart. I look forward to cashing your checks and to the answers to my questions above. Let me know where you kids are holed up and as I'll be jet-setting round with all my dough I'll pop in and take you to lunch. It's a promise.

Your pal,
Richard

P.S. This is on the level, isn't it?

Take A Knee for Racial Justice

Imagine being black and standing for the national anthem and looking “proudly” at the American flag. A flag that waved and an anthem that was played when your ancestors were being kidnapped in Africa and brought over to this country in chains. The same anthem and flag in use when your ancestors were being sold on auction blocks, worked in fields, whipped, raped and denied decent quarters, good food and an education. The same anthem and flag in use when your ancestors suffered under the oppressive Black Codes, the Jim Crow laws and the arbitrary and cruel injustice of the lynch mobs. The same anthem and flag in use when your ancestors were denied equality in housing, schools, transportation and entertainment. The same anthem and flag in use when your ancestors were subjected to fire hoses, batons, and angry dogs when they dared march and protest for equality. Imagine standing for that anthem. Yet they did, because despite it all they saw hope and opportunity and progress and believed in their future. But when some young black brothers in the National Football League grew weary of a criminal justice system and law enforcement officers who denied them their civil rights and made a mockery of their hard won freedoms, refused to stand for the anthem, they were vilified. Their leader, Colin Kaepernick was blackballed from the NFL.

In the antebellum south, slave owners and overseers would “break” young black men and women. Those who stood up to them and refused to yield were beaten and whipped until they were compliant. Today there resides in the White House a racist president who wants to see black NFL players who refuse to stand for the flag and the anthem, broken. He wants them suspended. He calls them names like “son-of-a-bitches.” This man wants to deny them their constitutionally guaranteed right to freedom of speech, he wants their NFL “owners” to punish them. He wants them broken. He wants them subjugated.

(In the mid 1960s a young boxer named Cassius Clay won the heavyweight boxing championship. This was fine with white America, especially since he had beaten another black man, Sonny Liston. But when Clay became a Muslim and changed his name to Muhammad Ali, the white American establishment recoiled. Then when Ali, on religious and moral grounds, refused to be inducted into the US army, they’d had enough. They thought they could break him by taking away his championship. They were wrong. After two and half years in boxing exile the courts ruled in his favor, Ali did not have to join the army and was finally able to box again. He eventually regained the championship.)

African Americans are currently incarcerated at a rate five times higher than that for whites. Prisons are the new slave plantations. It starts earlier with African Americans suspended and expelled from public schools at a rate three times higher than white students. When I was teaching in a public school I was told that the goal with “challenging students” as they were euphemistically called, was to get them enough days of suspension so that the district could move for expulsion. Then those students would go to another district were the cycle would be repeated. School budgets are slashed yearly eliminating programs that could help at risk students. Not that there is equality in schools. Just compare an inner city school with one in rich suburban areas. The difference is striking. Meanwhile money for prisons is plentiful.

Then there are the police — those charged with serving and “protecting” the citizenry are part of 21st century version of the lynch mob. According to an analysis of 2015 police killings by the Guardian. Racial minorities made up about 37.4 percent of the general population in the US and 46.6 percent of armed and unarmed victims, but they made up 62.7 percent of unarmed people killed by police.

How can anyone, white or black, NOT join in symbolic protests against both the overt and institutionalized racism that plagues this country?

Of course our bigot-in-chief, like many others, wishes that black athletes would find other means of expressing their discontent. You know, in a way that no one has to actually see it. I can think of no better way to call attention to this nation’s ills than refusing to stand for a song and a flag that to many have stood for so much that is wrong with this country.

I urge all Americans with a conscience to take a knee until there is real progress in addressing the bigotry that still infests this country and that horrible racist is driven out of the presidency. Power to the people.

A Group of 9th Grade Boys Have a Chat Early in the School Year

“That assembly was retarded.”

“God Jake, you totally can’t say that.”

“What, why?”

“Declan is right, dude. You’re not supposed to call anything retarded.”

“Or anyone.”

“Why not? What if some dude is retarded?”

“First of all, it’s offensive, people who are retarded don’t like it.”

“What the fuck are you talking about? Retarded people don’t care what you call them.”

“Goddamnit Jake, yes they do. Just cause they’re retarded doesn’t mean they don’t have feelings.”

“But mostly it's the families of people who are retarded that don’t like the word being used. It’s too negative.”

“Negative? Shit, it’s what they are.”

“It doesn’t matter, man. You cannot use the word.”

“Well fucking great, what are you supposed to call retarded people?”

There was silence for a few seconds.

“Isn’t something like people with special needs?”

“What kind of horseshit is that? Special needs, gimme a break.”

“Actually I think special needs is for people with disabilities.”

“Being retarded is a disability.’

“No, for people with physical ones.”

“Ones what?"

"Disabilities, ass wipe.”

“You don’t have to get all crude about it.”



“No, I think I do because you’re getting on everybody’s nerves.”

“Yeah but look none of you have said what we’re supposed to call retarded people. I mean okay, I get we don’t call them that but will someone give me a substitute word?”

There was silence for a few seconds.

“Okay, here’s what I found on the internet and it matches what Mr. Kadeski said in Science class last year. ‘Intellectually and developmentally disabled’ is one there’s also ‘cognitive disability’ ‘intellectual disability’ and ‘developmental disability.’”

“Okay, okay, I’ll got with developmentally disabled. I just don’t see why these names have to be so damn long. Retarded was one short word. Now everything is like two or three long words.”

“Actually, I know what you mean. My dad said that when he was a kid black people were called negroes and it wasn’t considered like a bad word like the n word is. Then at some point it changed to African American. He also said something about people from Asia all being called orients or something.”

“Oriental.”



“What’s wrong with Oriental? Jesus why do names for people have to change?”


“I honestly don’t know what’s wrong with Oriental. Declan, you want to look that one up too?”

“I’m on it….Ya know, I’m not finding a reason. People seem just to not like it but it was never used, like ‘retarded' is as a negative term.”

“That’s so fucked up. Some people just decide its offensive without saying why and now we can’t use it?”

“Do you really want to use it, Jake? Do you really need to?”

“No, of course not, Allan, but I don’t like all these words being taken away for no good reason.”

“Some of them are taken away for good reason, they’ve been used to hurt people. People are offended by them.”

“Maybe people shouldn’t get so easily offended. Maybe they should realize that they’re just words.”

“So if I call you a fucking asshole is that's ‘just words.’”

“C’mon, Declan you know that’s different, those are words that are meant to hurt people. Oriental isn’t meant to hurt anyone, neither is retarded.”

“Okay I see what you’re saying but still people should be able to tell other people what they do and don’t wanna be called.”

“So what if I don’t want to be called ‘white’?” What if a whole bunch of us decide that ‘white’ is offensive. Will non-white people stop using it?”

“It depends, do you have a good reason — do you have any reason — for saying white is offensive?”

“First of all its a bad description. Paper is white, our skin is not white, it’s as close to pink as it is to white.”

“That’s a decent point.”

“Plus the way some African Americans use the word ‘white’ like we’re all bad, ya know how they’ll say shit like, ‘you white people always be doing this or saying that.’”

“Okay Jake but listen are a lot of white people really complaining about the word?”

“No, but maybe they should be. Maybe —- .”

“What word would you want to be used instead of white?”

There was silence for a few seconds.

“Okay, I admit I don't know, but there’s gotta be another word that’s better.”

“You think of it Jake and let us know.”

“Maybe you like caucasian better.”

“I could think of worse.”

“So you seriously want to go with caucasian? Such a weird word.”

“Doesn’t it come from some mountains in Russia or something? Declan, check it out.”

“I’m on it….Yup, there are mountains and they border Europe and Asia. In Russia and a few other countries.”

“So how do you get caucasian as a name for white people out of that?”

“I’m looking right now…..Well I’m a little shaky and how it relates to the mountains — although maybe because the original white people came from the area. Anyway, it’s like negroid and mongoloid ‘cause it refers to a race of people.”

“I don’t like the idea of being referred to as a caucasian.”

“Me either.”

There was silence for a few seconds.

“Have you ever heard European-American? There’s some bullshit there.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Well you’re lumping all these people together from totally different places. Like you Allan, you’re family is from Sweden and Michael Tomaso’s parents came from Italy and I’m like part English, Irish and French and yet we’re all just European American.”

“What about African American? There are like 50 countries in Africa.”

“Yeah but black people here don’t usually know where their ancestors come from, I mean like which country, they just know that they come from the continent.”

“Sometimes I think all this hyphenating is just bullshit.”

“It can be, but if your family is all from one place like Japan then being Japanese-American makes sense.”

“I ‘spose, but why can’t we all just be Americans?”

“Because a lot of people are proud of their heritage and they want to be identified that way.”

There was silence for a few seconds.

“Hey, speaking of ‘identifying’ can you believe Marcus not wanting to be called by he or him because he’s — what he say he was?”

“Gender neutral.”

“What the fuck kind of crazy bullshit is that?”

“Marcus doesn’t feel like a man or a woman — yet.”

“Jesus, do you think that he’s going to turn himself into a woman, like have his dick cut off.”

“I don’t know, man, I don’t even like to think about it.”

“Hey, check it out, what about that dude Chris I hear he’s — ”

“If you mean Chris who wears the red jacket all the time he’s not a dude, man, that’s a chick.”

“No way.”

“Yeah, Declan is right, she’s a Christine, not a Christopher.’

“She must totally be a lesbian.”

“Ya think?”

“Well, Becky McAllister came out as lesbian in like the seventh grade.”

“Yeah that was no surprise.”

“And no loss.”

“Isn’t Peter Wright gay?”

“Yeah, he’s told a few people.”

“I’m cool with it. I mean thinking about the sex they do is totally gross but as long as they’re not bothering me….”

“Jake, dude, like some gay guy is going to hit on you.”

“Well it could happen.”

“I’m pretty sure that they only hit on people they know are gay.”

“How can they tell?”

“You’ve heard of having gaydar, right? Well they have it ten times stronger than any straight person ever could.”

“My mom said we’re lucky because when she was going to school, like nobody was out of the closet. Like you’d practically get killed if you came out.”

“Yeah, I guess that would suck.”

There was silence for a few seconds.

“I’m gonna get a girlfriend this year.”

“Me too. I’m tired of the kind of pretending like we did back in middle school where a guy and a girl say they’re a couple or are going together but they never do anything.”

“I know, I was going with Jenny McCall for a few months in 8th grade and all we ever did was talk on the phone, text and hang together at school dances. I think we kissed like twice.”

“Declan, you still going with Annie.”

“Yeah, I guess for awhile.”

“You two ever make out yet?”

“Yeah a lot of times.”

“Get any further.”

“If I did I wouldn’t tell you.”

“He hasn’t.”

“I’m ready to get laid.”

“Dude, me too and that’s all I want to do. I don’t want or need a girlfriend to do that.”

“So, Jake, you sayin’ you’re going to be a player.”

“Exactly.”

“Shit, it’s nearly five o’clock, I gotta go, my parents are going to kill me.”

“Yeah I should be getting home too.”

“Good talk everybody. See ya.”

“Bye.”

“Later.”

“Fucking first period P.E. tomorrow, see you there.”